Defending Student Privacy

Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast

Privacy risks are bad enough for adults – but it’s much worse for our kids, particularly as students. Who provides notice and obtains consent for minors at school? In many cases it’s not the parents, let alone the students – it’s the school system. Not only are they opting the students into invasive data collection by profit-driven third parties, but they often also bind them to mandatory arbitration clauses, neutering their ability to seek legal redress for the inevitable violations. Today I’ll discuss this horrid state of affairs with someone who is on the front lines of this battle for our children’s right to privacy: co-founder of the EdTech Law Center, Andy Liddell.

Interview Notes

• EdTech Law Center: https://edtech.law/about-us/
• EdTech current cases: https://edtech.law/cases/
• Internet Safety Labs: https://internetsafetylabs.org/
• The Right to Oblivion (book): https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674260528
• ACLU, Digital Dystopia: https://www.aclu.org/publications/digital-dystopia-the-danger-in-buying-what-the-edtech-surveillance-industry-is-selling
• The Markup, College Prep Software Naviance Is Selling Advertising Access to Millions of Students: https://themarkup.org/machine-learning/2022/01/13/college-prep-software-naviance-is-selling-advertising-access-to-millions-of-students
• Proton blog on EdTech and privacy: https://proton.me/blog/ed-tech-trackers

Further Info

• My book: https://fdsd.me/book
• My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter
• Support the mission: https://fdsd.me/support
• Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons
• Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch

Table of Contents

• 0:00:00: Intro
• 0:02:48: What’s your mission at the EdTech Law Center?
• 0:05:20: What are the unique privacy threats for students?
• 0:09:46: What privacy laws are there for minors?
• 0:12:05: How are these laws enforced and litigated?
• 0:18:21: How does notice and consent work for students?
• 0:27:05: What rights do the kids have in these situations?
• 0:29:38: How are these EdTech companies?
• 0:31:40: Which apps and tools are most problematic and why?
• 0:37:20: Should minors’s data be deleted when they reach adulthood?
• 0:40:15: Are school systems equipped to understand these contracts?
• 0:42:35: What about privacy issues with EdTech hardware?
• 0:45:50: What have we already learned via discovery or reporting?
• 0:50:01: As a parent, who do I talk to about my child’s privacy risks at school?
• 0:54:16: What are some red flags to look out for?
• 0:57:10: What responsibilities do school systems have here?
• 1:00:57: So what can we do? When should we reach out to you?
• 1:05:02: Interview follow-up
• 1:06:26: Patron podcast preview
• 1:07:19: Looking ahead